bunco
/ˈbʌŋkəʊ
/North American informal
noun (plural buncos) [usually as modifier]
A swindle or confidence trick: a bunco artist...
- Specially after I poked around and learned the Madame's qualifications for horoscope-readings consist of 19 convictions for fraud, bunco scams, and operating illegal ‘games of chance’ in Atlantic City.
- But it's not just bunco artists who are suffering from this tightening of the purse strings.
- Because the producers hired police bunco squad members as consultants, the movie shows us all the nuts and bolts of the sorts of scams that can be run in a tent-revival format.
verb (buncoes, buncoing, buncoed) [with object] dated
Swindle or cheat: he didn’t propose to be buncoed without a fight...
- The St. Regis tribe of Indians of Franklin County claim that they were buncoed by the last legislature, and are so incensed that an outbreak at the reservation is feared.
- I never mingle with the crowds that are being buncoed [sic] in the big department stores of Los Angeles.
- I just can't stay in the room and see you buncoed that way.
Origin
Late 19th century: perhaps from Spanish banca, the name of a card game.